Blood Money Read Free Page B

They came and left in about a half hour. My friend Danny came out looking like he just got to the end of a tightrope, and smiled at me again. Next time he came to town, he offered me a job.”
    “What kind of job?”
    “It was the same thing—cleaning. He offered me three times what I was getting at the hotel. There was this house in the Keys, and I was supposed to clean it. That’s all.”
    Jane sighed. “And it turned out there was more to the job than cleaning.”
    “No,” said Rita. “That was it.”
    Jane decided not to make more guesses aloud. Maybe this Danny just figured that if he could bribe her to keep his secret, the husband could bribe her to reveal it.
    Rita said, “It was a beautiful house, on the ocean. The one who lived there was a nice old man. I was there for a year. It was great.”
    “When did it stop being great?”
    “Three days ago. The old man went away for a little trip. My friend Danny took him to the airport at four in the morning. I figured this was a great chance to show off, so I spent the whole day giving the house a real cleaning. There’s nothing in that place that can be polished or waxed or shined that wasn’t that day. I didn’t stop until about nine at night. I took a shower and fell asleep as soon as I was off my feet. The next thing I know, there are eight or nine big guys. They come into the house in the middle of the night—not like burglars. They were talking loud and stomping around like they were in a big hurry. For a second or two, I thought it must be firemen coming in because I left something plugged in and started a fire. Then three of them come into my room. They look wrong, like the ones at the hotel. They haul me out of bed. One starts asking me all kinds of questions—where the old man kept this, or that. I don’t know any of the answers. When they figure that out and go down the hall, I go straight to the closet and start packing. One of them comes in again, and when he sees the suitcase, he flips it over on the bed and says I’m not leaving. I’m going with them.”
    “Did he say where?”
    “He said, ‘To see Mr. Delfina.’ ”
    Jane’s jaw tightened. “Do you know who that is?”
    “No. But it sounded like I was supposed to. You know: Mister.”
    Jane stopped listening, but the girl didn’t notice. “So I left the suitcase there on the bed where they could see it, and left my clothes and everything, and I put my money and ID and my mother’s picture and stuff in my jacket pockets. After daybreak, most of them left. There were only three of themsearching the closets and the attic, and one in the back yard. I went out the sliding door off the patio on the side, went over the wall, and walked to the bus stop … ”
    Jane watched the girl’s lips move, and she knew she should be listening, or should tell the girl to stop because she would have to hear it all. The girl didn’t know that she was thinking about the husband she loved so deeply, and that her eyes weren’t focused on the kitchen window because she was concentrating on the story. She was looking at it because she was getting used to the idea that she might never see it again. The girl didn’t know that she had said the only word that had needed to be said: Delfina.
    After a moment, Jane turned and switched off the burners on the stove and closed the window, then walked through the house checking the others. When she came back the girl was standing beside the table, her skinny arms now crossed on her chest so each hand gripped the opposite elbow as though she were protecting herself from the cold. Jane said, “Does anyone besides Celia Fulham know you came here?”
    “No,” said the girl. “I never heard of you before yesterday, and I didn’t get off the bus until I got to Celia.”
    “What about after that? Where did you sleep last night?”
    “A hotel.” She reached into her pocket, pulled out a pack of matches, and handed it to Jane. “I kept those so I’d know my